Snowboard Training Board

Snowboarding’s greatest rite of passage just might be getting through the first day on the hill. The sport’s often painful initiation can include countless brutal falls. Brand new snowboarders might take some pain out of the learning curve with Vew-Do’s Progression balance trainer, a board mounted on a fixed base which pivots, capturing the natural bending and twisting sensation of carving down a mountain.

Vew-Do Progression

With the Progression board you can mimic pivot turns that in the past could only be achieved on-snow. “The Progression truly takes the process of learning to ride any type of board, especially snowboarding, into a new realm,” said the company founder.

Vew-Do has been making balance boards since 1990. The Progression is touted to help with balance and muscle development. It costs $185. www.vewdo.com

—Stephen Krcmar lives in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and wishes he had had a Progression when he started snowboarding in 1988.